.:.:: FEY AYAN ::.:.

  In the dim light of the long-glow night, Ayan crested the pinnacle’s edge with trembling arms, her Q-mask filters exhausted, chest heaving against the hard shape in her bag. She could barely breathe. The climb back up had been frantic, fueled by equal parts excitement and dread.

  She collapsed onto the pinnacle’s flat crown, and for a moment, she simply lay on the flat surface, the bag pressed against her ribs. Then she pushed herself to her knees and carefully opened the bag.

  The beacon was smaller than she’d expected, no larger than her palm. It was hexagonal with rounded corners and a scarred and discolored casing, coated with layers of webber filaments. The manufacturer’s logo was barely visible beneath years of accumulated grime. But other than that, it seemed intact. She touched a finger to the button and blue indicator light flickered dimly beneath the film of organic growth.

  It was functional. After thirty years of waiting, silent and patient, preserved within the pinnacle’s hollow interior.

  With reverent care, she rose and went to her strataglider, settling into the pilot’s seat. The beacon’s connection port was standard, and though it was an older model, it was compatible with the dashboard’s interface. She brushed away the more stubborn webber strands, her hands remarkably steady.

  “Let’s find out what you know,” she told it.

  She activated the retrieval protocol, holding her breath as the device hummed to life. Frontier beacons used radioisotope batteries designed for decades of standby operation, but she didn’t know how they’d fare against decades of corrosive webber growth. For several agonizing seconds, nothing happened. Then a light flashed rapidly on the beacon’s edges. She looked at her dashboard screen and almost jumped with shock when words appeared.

  “Good,” she murmured. “Now talk to me.”

  , she typed. Then she forced her hands to rest folded on the console edge to wait. The small, old-fashioned diagnostic icon blinked at her as she breathed patiently.

  Then, after what felt like an eternity:

  She couldn’t stop a nervous laugh as she typed her acknowledgement. Warranty concerns after three decades?

  .

  The icon blinked rapidly, then paused.

  . She paused, remembering the old joke between them.

  A pause that stretched too long. The beacon’s ageing processor grinding through whatever criteria Gyllon had programmed decades ago.

  .

  A voice emerged from her dashboard’s speaker. Cracked and distorted, but unmistakable.

  “...Gyllon here. If you’re hearing this...means the MDI finally planted their hefty corporate footprint on Kabus. About time, too. Whoever you are, just listen: I’ve been here five years since the survey team left me for dead. Wasn’t their fault. The ground just suddenly…lifted and tore right through us. I dropped down a crevasse. I guess they thought I was crushed. Classic scenario...”

  His voice broke into what should have been a laugh, but Ayan recognized the wet, rattling sound. His lungs were failing.

  “...should’ve known better than to wear security colors on a frontier mission.”

  The audio cut to harsh, wracking coughs that made Ayan wince. She drew careful, steady breaths, remembering his strong shoulders, the way he’d carried two some of the younger station kids. This broken sound couldn’t be the same man.

  “Took me two days to climb out…and all they left me was this box of beacons. Pointless things, nothing in range for them to talk to because they took the whole damn survey expedition and fled. Also met something... someone... ha, a friend. Not sure what I was looking at. Not human, not from around here. Saved my life…we’ve been living in what I like to call my villa... ...nothing fancy, just a shelter, but it was our home.”

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  A long pause stretched out, filled only with the sound of his labored breathing. Each inhalation seemed to cost him more effort than the last. Ayan closed her eyes against the pain of hearing him struggle for air.

  “Look, I’m not...”

  Another bout of coughing interrupted him, deeper this time, productive. She could hear the fluid in his chest.

  “...not doing well. Some kind of infection, maybe from the spores. I was hoping I could last until MDI gets its act together and sends more people, but nah. Won’t make it till then. Never mind, I’ve had a good run. Been busy these five years. Recorded everything I could about this moon. The lifeforms, these pinnacles, the way the ground...moonquakes, I guess, but like it’s breathing. Back and forth. Anyway, it’s all in my beacons at the villa. I’d give coordinates, but I don’t have them and nothing stays in one place for long here.”

  Beneath his voice, Ayan caught a strange ambient sound in the background. It was like a low, harmonic vibration, some kind of mechanical hum. Had he found machinery?

  “This beacon is sturdy, so I’ll leave it in this here pinnacle. I’m going to assume that this is about where they’ll build their precious Hub...hoping someone would pick it up. Hi there, friendly spelunker! Tell them I didn’t abandon my post. Just got... reassigned by the universe.”

  His laugh came thin and wheezing, nothing like the deep rumble she remembered.

  No, she would not allow tears in her eyes.

  “And if you see a friend...don’t be afraid. Sometimes help comes in strange forms...”

  The message cut off abruptly, leaving only the soft hiss of empty data.

  Ayan sat motionless in the pilot’s seat, the beacon still in her hands. Thirty years. He’d survived five of them while making a home and recording data. Typical Gyllon. Even stranded on an alien moon, he’d found a way to file proper reports.

  She typed a command into the console, sending the beacon’s full data cache to the Hub. Her fingers moved automatically while her mind processed the practical implications. More beacons at this villa of his. Environmental data, observations about the pinnacles, and records of the ground’s movement patterns. Five years of research that could have saved them countless mistakes in establishing the Hub.

  If only they’d come sooner. If only she’d started searching earlier. If only she’d come to this pinnacle first. If only—

  “Stop,” she said aloud. “If-only is the most useless phrase in any language.”

  The upload completed with a soft chime. His words were now safely stored on the Kabus database. Suddenly the cockpit felt too small, too confined. She needed air and space and a view of the big sky outside. She stashed the beacon behind her, then climbed out and went to the pinnacle’s edge.

  Mosogon dominated the sky, its palette of bands stark in their slow, majestic patterns. The gas giant’s immense presence dwarfed everything beneath it, making even the most permanent structures feel ephemeral.

  She’d spent years searching for answers about Gyllon, following cold trails through system after system, each lead dissolving into nothing. Dead ends and false hopes had become her companions until she’d almost convinced herself that closure was a luxury she’d never have.

  And now... now she had him.

  He’d lived. He’d made a home and called it a villa — of course he had. He’d kept filing reports until the very end because that’s who he was. Thorough, practical, and determined to leave things in order.

  The ache in her chest was neither grief nor joy but something in between. Bittersweet, like the last sip of good liquor. She’d found him, but twenty-five years too late to matter. She hugged her knees to her chest, watching the gas giant.

  Strange how silence could feel so different depending on what filled it. Back at the Hub, silence meant systems running smoothly, and no crises demanding attention. Out here, it felt vast and ancient, like the space between stars. Her eyes traced the outline of Mosogon’s southern storm, a huge mauve spot churning in its endless dance. This gas giant had been Gyllon’s only companion for five years.

  The thought reminded her of the old frontier tales of the Tempest-Brave, an ancient race supposedly living in its upper atmosphere, beings riding the eternal winds on their titanium steeds. Fairy tales, of course. Stories lonely colonists told themselves to feel less alone out here.

  Still, looking at those vast purple clouds, she wondered what it would be like. To live in perpetual motion, never touching ground, always suspended between sky and storm…

  “Don’t get sentimental, Fey,” she said with a shake of the head.

  The long-glow night had a way of making such fancies seem almost possible. Or maybe she was finally developing a touch of the Seep herself. Ha! Wouldn’t that be ironic? The ever-practical Hub Chief lost in daydreams about sky riders.

  She smiled at her own whimsy. Gyllon would have called it “poetic nonsense,” and then admitted he’d wondered the same thing on nights like these. Ah…the warm feeling in her chest was still there. She didn’t want to hear his voice again. Not yet. The discovery was still too raw. But she did want to talk to , to hear another’s voice, to share this strange mix of triumph and loss.

  Not just anyone, though. She needed someone who wouldn’t pry, who would dive straight into the technical implications rather than probe her emotional state. Someone whose enthusiasm for data would let her process this experience without having to explain the weight of it.

  Who else but Ootu?

  Her fingers found her comm unit almost without thinking.

  “Hub Chief to Field Station One,” she said, surprising herself with how steady her voice sounded.

  He answered almost immediately. “Hub Chief? Isn’t it past your bedtime?”

  “I’m still out on the pinnacle with my useless strataglider.” She settled back against the strataglider, letting his familiar irreverence wash over her. As he launched into his theories about Starcarver and the fake novices, she found herself genuinely engaged, her analytical mind latching onto the puzzle he presented.

  As his words tumbled out she smiled faintly, watching Mosogon’s slow dance, letting his voice fill the quiet. There was something soothing about his absolute conviction, his elaborate theories that jumped from observation to hypothesis without pause. No awkward silences, no careful questions about how she was feeling.

  A flicker of movement caught her eye. Not in the sky, but along the horizon. She blinked, at first thinking it might be fatigue playing tricks, but... there. The distant line where the canopy met the sky seemed to shimmer, like heat distortion on a hot day.

  She murmured agreement to whatever Ootu was saying, sitting up straighter. The shimmer was spreading…no.

  The horizon wasn’t shimmering. It was rising.

  Her stomach clenched. The distant biomass layer was lifting like a wave gathering strength, sections folding and buckling in slow motion.

  The tidal event. The one Tidal Dynamics had predicted, then dismissed as a calculation error.

  Her fingers tightened on the comm unit as understanding flooded through her. It hadn’t failed. It had been held back, somehow. Delayed, building power, gathering force beneath the biomass layer.

  And now it was coming.

  “Ootu!” she cried. “Get out of there! Now!”

  “Ootu!” she cut him off mid-sentence. “Get out of there! Now!”

  “What?”

  “Look east! Tide!”

  She cut the connection and sprang to her feet, lunging toward the strataglider and throwing herself into the pilot’s seat and yanking the safety harness tight across her chest.

  “Come on, come on,” she muttered, jabbing at the comm panel, calling up the Hub. Never mind the broken stabilizer. Never mind anything except—

  “Hey, Chief!” Marlo’s cheerful voice filled the cockpit. “How’s the long-glow night from up there? You wouldn’t believe what I just—”

  “Marlo!” She fought to keep her voice steady enough to convey details. “Major tidal event incoming. Not twelve percent. This is massive. Get everyone to secure positions now. Initiate full lockdown protocols.”

  “But Tidal Dynamics said—”

  “Negative! Look at your sensors. Move! NOW!”

  “Oh hell.” Alarm rose in his voice. “Chief, this can’t be right. These readings are—”

  “Just get everyone secured! I’m strapping in up here. Maybe three minutes before it hits you, less before it reaches me. This is going to hit hard!”

  Through the canopy, she watched the impossible wave of biomass surge toward her, Kabus itself rising like a furious leviathan.